The End of Growth in the Tar Sands. So Now What?

A managed decline of the tar sands isn’t a popular idea in Alberta, or in Canada for that matter. The idea of sunsetting the tar sands industry is about as polarizing as it gets. The problem is that people have been led to believe that a managed decline undercuts a booming oil industry that is on the cusp of bouncing back after a few bad years. It’s not. The only real alternative to a managed decline is something much worse: an unmanaged decline. Almost everyone understands that the world will eventually wean itself off of fossil fuels, hopefully sooner than later. A rarely discussed consequence of this is that there is no reasonable scenario in which the high cost tar sands sector remains the last man standing as the transition takes hold. Indeed, this dynamic appears to be already in play. In a new briefing note published Thursday, we […]